35% Body Fat

Tar.Aldarion

Ezra Wibberley wrote: »

I don't think my gym has foam rollers, but I could be wrong. I'm not sure. How do they work out of interest?

TarAldarion, you're correct, there's a slight overlap on the work tonight with Monday's work (upper legs will be put under pressure tonight, walking up and down steps with a kettle bell in each hand) but it's not nearly as demanding as the leg specific free weight exercises. Tonight is 25secs of an exercise, 10secs breather, some with weights, some without, repeat through different exercises.

I bought my own as gym ones aren't great anyway.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trigger-Point-Performance-Grid-Roller/dp/B0040EGNIU/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445448573&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=tiggerpoint They basically are for a self deep tissue massage using your own body weight to remove "knots" from muscles instead of hiring somebody to do it. http://breakingmuscle.com/mobility-recovery/what-is-a-foam-roller-how-do-i-use-it-and-why-does-it-hurt

"The goal to any corrective or recovery technique is to get you back to the point of normal functioning, as if nothing was ever wrong."

That training is fine, I just work on different muscles while the others are sore.

Ezra Wibberley

^^Thanks for the link. Do you find it effective? Is it something you use only when you have DOMS or is it something you tend to use after workouts in general?

Last nights interval training (weighted stair walks, skipping, farmers walk, ropes, bar lifts) went well, actually feel almost perfect today, just mild stiffness. Feeling good just in time to undo it tonight :P

Tar.Aldarion

Yeah I find it very good, I don't do it as much as I should as I get lazy. The ideal is to do it after your workouts in general. I find it definitely reduces length of DOMS.

ford2600

OP a couple of more things which may/may not be useful
*you are looking at 12 months in your op. 12 months is a long time for anything but a really like time to be doing something which is often really hard. Break in up into chunks from the outset, write it down and make a plan.
* Your body will react very significantly to fat loss, especially in terms of a hormonal response. Some of these you can't do anything about, but you can control stress. Stress will fcuk you if you let it, which is why you should actively build in stress reducers e.g. social activity, yoga, more sex, whatever The hormonal response is endlessly complicated and you don't need to understand it but you need to use stress reduction and good sleep as your two main weapons. I'd give them as much emphasis as diet/exercise.
*over 12 months you'll probably get stalling in weight loss, don't panic relax, take a day or two reappraise. Maintenance at 90Kgs or whatever for a few weeks is 100 times better than panicking are tearing up plan.

onasis

Ezra Wibberley wrote: »

Good solid advice. I need to think about this one. I've never had a particular love of anything sporty. Have completed a half marathon previously and know that running is not enjoyable for me. Maybe cycling.. or swimming.

I found this too. For a long time I equated fitness with an ability to run. I spent ages on the treadmill and eventually managed to get to about 7k in 50 minute session. Great, except that I hated every minute of it. I took up spinning instead and love it. I do 4 spinning classes a week, 1 body tone, 1 weights and 1 Pt and I laugh every time I walk past the treadmill. I suggest you do what you love because you'll love what you do and this will keep you motivated.

Ezra Wibberley

ford2600 wrote:

Your body will react very significantly to fat loss, especially in terms of a hormonal response. Some of these you can't do anything about, but you can control stress. Stress will fcuk you if you let it, which is why you should actively build in stress reducers e.g. social activity, yoga, more sex, whatever The hormonal response is endlessly complicated and you don't need to understand it but you need to use stress reduction and good sleep as your two main weapons. I'd give them as much emphasis as diet/exercise.

Thanks Ford.

I am very curious about the hormonal response to fat loss you are talking about. Are you saying losing fat and gaining muscle will trigger noticeable mental stress in the body? I don't dispute it I'd just like to learn more about it.


Quick update: did two weight sessions this week and didn't get in my interval session due to the bank holiday and the way my weekends work out. Weights have been slightly increased for some sets and I think I'm doing OK. The pain the day/two days after is significantly less than it had been, more an awareness if having trained and maybe a slight weakness in those muscles, but happy with that!

Ezra Wibberley

onasis wrote:

I found this too. For a long time I equated fitness with an ability to run. I spent ages on the treadmill and eventually managed to get to about 7k in 50 minute session. Great, except that I hated every minute of it. I took up spinning instead and love it. I do 4 spinning classes a week, 1 body tone, 1 weights and 1 Pt and I laugh every time I walk past the treadmill. I suggest you do what you love because you'll love what you do and this will keep you motivated.

Thanks for the advice Onasis!

Brings me to another query... Does weight training actually increase fitness at all? Sure I know that strength develops and I am out of breath after hard sets, but does it actually increase fitness? Like Onasis said, I tend to (wrongly I'm sure) equate fitness with an ability to run an undefined distance comfortably

Are you changing your diet? Honestly, the best advice anyone gave me "muscle is gained in the gym, fat is lost in the kitchen".

Have you ever heard of Couch to 5K (C25K)?

Ezra Wibberley

Deleted User wrote:

Are you changing your diet? Honestly, the best advice anyone gave me "muscle is gained in the gym, fat is lost in the kitchen".

Good advice. I am in the process of changing my diet alright, I'm pretty happy with my meals during the week but the weekends are still proving difficult to conquer. If I can whittle it down from treat days to treat day then to treat meal I'll be doing good. I feel I need some kind of carefree approach a day a week, it keeps me on the straight and narrow midweek.

Typical weekday;

Breakfast: chicken fillet, half avocado, krill oil capsule, glass of water

Mid morning: banana, coffee (I don't take sugar)

Lunch: wholegrain pasta salad with lighter than light mayonnaise, broccoli/green beans, tomatoes, chicken or salmon (or some minor variations on this)

Afternoon; coffee and banana

Dinner: salmon darne/prawns/chicken, broccoli /Brussels sprouts/green beans/2-3 baby potatoes or 60g rice (carbs omitted post workout meal)

Water throughout the day.

Nervous Wreck

OP, congrats on starting your journey! I'm gonna echo some other people's main points and throw in a couple of my own. This stuff worked for me; hopefully it'll work for you too:

• Consistency is key!
• Re-read your OP on your bad days
• Picture life at your goal weight and go hell for leather to get there
• Listen to your PT and never veer off-course
• Don't think of it as 12 months; think of it as 4 separate 3 month periods
• Punctuate your milestones with a gift to yourself (e.g. you reach 25% bodyfat, you get yourself a new CD etc)
• Take pictures as you go; you'll want to look back at the journey
• Buy a nice t-shirt that's too small for you; your next goal is to fit into it. When you do, wear it with pride!
• Have fun! Healthy eating and exercise is a reward in itself; it'll be enjoyable if you let it be.
• Make no excuses.
• Stay the course.
• Decide to succeed, then do it.

Finally OP, if you're going off course or feeling bad or if you faulter, come back here and tell us about it. We'll help you get back on the horse. Good luck!

Are you tracking your calories? Sign up for myfitnesspal and download the app for your smartphone. It's a really good utility for tracking what you eat and gives you a good idea about your totals to achieve your loss.

Just keep going. It's super tough, but worth it. Before Christmas I was just over 14 stone and unhappy, then I joined a gym and fixed my diet and have lost just under 2 stone since. I'm about 5 to 8 lbs off my goal, which I hope to achieve by Christmas.

Absolutely take photos. I sometimes look at the way I was then and it makes me feel so much better each time.

ford2600

Ezra Wibberley wrote: »

I am very curious about the hormonal response to fat loss you are talking about. Are you saying losing fat and gaining muscle will trigger noticeable mental stress in the body? I don't dispute it I'd just like to learn more about it.

Ah no, just that general stress, that associated with a difficult job, money worries relationship trouble etc etc will have a hormonal response which will in many be detrimental to weight loss. Use exercise/social outlets etc as means of controlling/reducing stress as another element in reducing bodyfat and getting healthier.

Also, other than hormones, for you to succeed you will need mental strength; reducing stress will help with this to.

I came at this a very different way to you; I'm for all my 40 years effortlessly lean, my father was the same and my mother always struggled. Over the years I've wondered why it was easy for me and hard for others. The hormonal model (along with what Stephan Gueyenet calls that hedonistic one) is the only one that explains it for me. For me the action of leptin, ghrelin etc and the hypothalmus will defend my 14% bodyfat, dysfunction in that same system will cause and an obese person's system to defend a much higher bodyfat level.

The cure seems to be the same, clean diet with plenty veg, plenty protein etc

TBH it probably not something you need to look at at all it's just something I find endlessly interesting.

Best of luck, keep up the lifting and the HIIT along with diet and enjoy the new lifestyle.

Below is a good source of info. Each podcast will have the guests own website, books etc etc. You did ask!

http://sigmanutrition.com/podcasts
64,72,84,89

Alf Veedersane

ford2600 wrote: »

Below is a good source of info. Each podcast will have the guests own website, books etc etc. You did ask!

http://sigmanutrition.com/podcasts
64,72,84,89

Like Ford said, you don't necessarily need to know but if you're interested, then that's a great resource.

Ezra Wibberley

ford2600 wrote:

TBH it probably not something you need to look at at all it's just something I find endlessly interesting.

ford2600 wrote:

Best of luck, keep up the lifting and the HIIT along with diet and enjoy the new lifestyle.

Thanks Ford, it is very interesting stuff. It's fascinating really.

So my trainer did my body fats again tonight, 17 days after doing the first one, and 7 gym sessions in that time.

A reminder of my 1st day...


19th October: 106kg & 34.6% body fat

Today I weighed in at 107.3kg. He said I have lost 1.3kg (3lb) of fat but gained 2.6kg (6lb) of muscle. He said this is a high initial gain because I was coming from a place of having a low muscle mass but muscle gains will drop off.

All in all I think I'm happy with this! At least it's progress, less fat is good. Honestly I was disheartened looking at scales last few days at the weight gain, but happier now I see the reasons.

Hemerodrome

Ezra Wibberley wrote: »

Brings me to another query... Does weight training actually increase fitness at all? Sure I know that strength develops and I am out of breath after hard sets, but does it actually increase fitness? Like Onasis said, I tend to (wrongly I'm sure) equate fitness with an ability to run an undefined distance comfortably

Yes, it does, but then you need to define fitness. Powerlifting will increase your powerlifting fitness, running will increase your running fitness and so on. Fitness is the ability to perform whatever it is you set out to perform, so you need to identify performance parameters before you can say you're improving fitness. I'd beat the world's strongest man over a mile, he'd beat me at a truck pull, but neither of us is aiming for the other's fitness parameters and we're both fit in our different ways.

Ezra Wibberley

I guess to me being fit or improving fitness is something that will increase my life span or enhance my health and improve my wellbeing, my quality of life. Make my heart stronger etc.

That may be a horrible definition for some people, but when I say I want my fitness to improve I mean those things really, not the ability to powerlift or run a marathon as such.

Mellor

Hemerodrome wrote: »

I'd beat the world's strongest man over a mile, he'd beat me at a truck pull, but neither of us is aiming for the other's fitness parameters and we're both fit in our different ways.

But fitness isn't the reason you are beating him, or vice versa. If you both trained opposite for a year (him in running, you in strongman) the out come wouldn't change.

Assessing fitness improvements should be done against yourself. 6 months on a good weight lifting routine would provay aldo improve OP's mile time.

Hemerodrome

Nothing horrible or wrong with your definition or aims, you just have to work out how it best suits you to achieve them and focus on that, rather than a generic question like "will x activity make me 'fitter'". Lots of people fall down because they don't have clear goals, leading to them spending too much time working towards the wrong one.

Hemerodrome

Mellor wrote: »

But fitness isn't the reason you are beating him, or vice versa.

Yes, it is actually. I don't have his strength, he doesn't have my running ability, they are two different expressions of fitness, which was the point of my post, there are different aspects and definitions of fitness besides the generic aerobic fitness most people reach for, as the OP was doing.

Mellor

Hemerodrome wrote: »

Yes, it is actually. I don't have his strength, he doesn't have my running ability, they are two different expressions of fitness, which was the point of my post, there are different aspects and definitions of fitness besides the generic aerobic fitness most people reach for, as the OP was doing.

My point was its mostly a factor of intrinsic ability rather than trained fitness - if you want to include that ability as a natural fitness, that fair enough but its not what the OP was asking.

He asked would weights improve his ability to run a set distance comfortable, accepting that was probably not a good definition of fitness. The simple answer was yes it most likely will.

Tar.Aldarion

Ezra Wibberley wrote: »

I guess to me being fit or improving fitness is something that will increase my life span or enhance my health and improve my wellbeing, my quality of life. Make my heart stronger etc.

That may be a horrible definition for some people, but when I say I want my fitness to improve I mean those things really, not the ability to powerlift or run a marathon as such.

Not a horrible definition imo, quite a common one really, but as mentioned it's better to specifically say what you wnat as people have different ideas on fitness and what it is. I think cardiovascular health form things like eh cardio is extremely important for what you want. But then again people running marathons may be doing too much strain on their heart, I don't know. Then I think lifting can be quite good for health but read studies saying calorie restriction increases lifespan (no idea if it is bs) and that is often the opposite with building and maintaining muscle. One thing I noticed before was the most muscled people at my gym only last a few minutes on the threadmill before being knackered (I realise not all are like this), which really doesn't seem the best to me (they also avoid cardio to not "lose gains"). I'm not really sure what to do that is best for overall health and longevity but it is interesting to me.

Dtp1979

Ezra Wibberley wrote: »

Thanks Ford, it is very interesting stuff. It's fascinating really.

So my trainer did my body fats again tonight, 17 days after doing the first one, and 7 gym sessions in that time.

A reminder of my 1st day...


19th October: 106kg & 34.6% body fat

Today I weighed in at 107.3kg. He said I have lost 1.3kg (3lb) of fat but gained 2.6kg (6lb) of muscle. He said this is a high initial gain because I was coming from a place of having a low muscle mass but muscle gains will drop off.

All in all I think I'm happy with this! At least it's progress, less fat is good. Honestly I was disheartened looking at scales last few days at the weight gain, but happier now I see the reasons.

How did your trainer know so accurately that you gained 6lb muscle and lost 3lb fat?

Mellor

Dtp1979 wrote: »

How did your trainer know so accurately that you gained 6lb muscle and lost 3lb fat?

Weight x bodyfat % before vrs Weight x bodyfat % after.

Completely at the mercy of the inaccuracies of BF%

Ezra Wibberley

Mellor wrote:

Completely at the mercy of the inaccuracies of BF%

I accept that there are inaccuracies and this (my reported fat loss/muscle gain) may not be correct but I'm hoping that even within margins of error that I have indeed gained muscle and lost fat and that this accounts for my weight gain, as from a dietary point of view it makes no sense to me that I'd be up 3lb.

Tar.Aldarion

I don't think the diet is being tracked correctly so, that's over 10000 calories that got in you without you knowing. :-p
I always overestimate my calories and round up, I find it's more accurate.

Ian Whelan

I have recently come off a weight loss and tone up programme. I dropped 18kg in around 4 months. From 108kg to around 90kg (where I now am). I did it by restricting my intake of carbs, upping my protein, stopping drinking and by training hard in the gym 5-6 times per week. I'm now pretty much where I want to be. I can safely say that the best thing I discovered during the journey was Branch Chain Amino Acids. They really helped with weight loss and with recovery after exercise, I would recommend them to anyone, I think they are superb. That's all I have to say on the topic really, it's very hard but it's worth it.

Blacktie.

Ian Whelan wrote:

I have recently come off a weight loss and tone up programme. I dropped 18kg in around 4 months. From 108kg to around 90kg (where I now am). I did it by restricting my intake of carbs, upping my protein, stopping drinking and by training hard in the gym 5-6 times per week. I'm now pretty much where I want to be. I can safely say that the best thing I discovered during the journey was Branch Chain Amino Acids. They really helped with weight loss and with recovery after exercise, I would recommend them to anyone, I think they are superb. That's all I have to say on the topic really, it's very hard but it's worth it.

I think your entire attitude and change of lifestyle helped a lot more than BCAAs. No research that I know of has confirmed whether they make any difference to eating a high protein diet and it doesn't make sense to me why they would. Unless training fasted anyway and even then I'm not 100% sold on them making a difference.

Alf Veedersane

Ian Whelan wrote: »

I have recently come off a weight loss and tone up programme. I dropped 18kg in around 4 months. From 108kg to around 90kg (where I now am). I did it by restricting my intake of carbs, upping my protein, stopping drinking and by training hard in the gym 5-6 times per week. I'm now pretty much where I want to be. I can safely say that the best thing I discovered during the journey was Branch Chain Amino Acids. They really helped with weight loss and with recovery after exercise, I would recommend them to anyone, I think they are superb. That's all I have to say on the topic really, it's very hard but it's worth it.

Just curious on this (sorry, I know it's OT). BCAAs don't usually confer any extra benefit if your protein intake is high enough (over 1g/kg) so just wondered if you had gone through a decent spell on high protein diet without the BCAAs that meant you could say the BCAAs made a noticeable difference when you started on them?

Ian Whelan

On the website it says: "Scivation XTEND helps to facilitate both fat loss and new muscle construction. Also, by orchestrating optimal protein synthesis and by balancing the intracellular energy economy, Scivation XTEND severely truncates recovery time. You just don’t feel recovered, you are recovered."

It may well be a scam but I think it has helped me as I am rarely incredibly sore after training. I remember years ago I was training easier than I am now and I could hardly shampoo my hair in the mornings. I think they have made a difference to me anyway.

Ian Whelan

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Just curious on this (sorry, I know it's OT). BCAAs don't usually confer any extra benefit if your protein intake is high enough (over 1g/kg) so just wondered if you had gone through a decent spell on high protein diet without the BCAAs that meant you could say the BCAAs made a noticeable difference when you started on them?

I went through about 2 weeks without taking them. That was from June 16th to the beginning of July. Then the soreness started to get a bit much so I started on the BCAAs after never having taken them before and things picked up from there. It may well be that things would have picked up anyway but I don't know. Anyway, even if they make only 1% of a difference I think that at the moment I'd rater spend my money on them than on pints of Heineken.